A Four-Year Ban Tucked Into a Housing Bill
The House gave final approval to the sweeping housing measure, clearing the way for one of the crypto industry’s most-watched policy wins in years. The legislation blocks the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail digital dollar until the end of 2030, unless Congress acts to extend the restriction. The bill’s language is unusually direct, stating:
“[The central bank] may not issue or create a central bank digital currency…directly or indirectly through a financial institution or other intermediary.”
That provision arrived in the Senate’s version of the package, which lawmakers passed in an overwhelming 85-5 vote on June 22. The House had earlier advanced its own housing legislation by a 396-13 margin, and this week’s vote aligned the chamber with the Senate text, sending the combined bill to the White House.
Supporters believe the ban is a guardrail against government surveillance of personal spending rather than a response to any imminent launch. The Fed has studied a digital dollar through research papers and a Boston pilot program, but no retail CBDC was close to deployment.
Codifying an Executive Order
The ban effectively writes into law the stance Trump took in January 2025, when he signed an executive order opposing CBDC development and citing risks to financial privacy. By codifying that position, Congress would make it far harder for a future administration to revive a digital-dollar project without passing new legislation.
Critics of central bank digital currencies argue that a state-run digital dollar could let authorities monitor or restrict how citizens transact, while proponents have pitched it as a modernization of public money. For the rest of the decade, the bill sides decisively with the skeptics.
Stablecoins Spared
The legislation carves out private, dollar-denominated digital assets, including stablecoins, provided they preserve privacy comparable to physical cash. That exemption leaves the fast-growing stablecoin sector, already worth hundreds of billions of dollars, as the primary vehicle for digital dollars in the United States.
The distinction is important for crypto firms that have built businesses around dollar-pegged tokens because rather than competing with a government-issued digital dollar, those issuers now operate in a market where the central bank is barred from entering at the retail level through 2030.
With both chambers aligned, the bill heads to President Trump, who is expected to sign it, given his earlier executive order. His signature would convert the temporary prohibition into binding law through Dec. 31, 2030.
